


Ironic Gold

by ThatSoChangeableChick



Series: Red Hood Reflections [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-22 19:35:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6091801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatSoChangeableChick/pseuds/ThatSoChangeableChick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason thinks Dick bleeding out and paralayzed it the perfect time to bring forth his complaints [he has many]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ironic Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Basically this is a look into Dick and Jason's relationship after Under the Red Hood.

“Well, isn’t this ironic,” Jason Todd preened. As in the last person Dick required at this moment in time. He’d tried reaching out to the brother-he-never-had and it ended with lots of stabbing of daggers. Dick understood that message, it didn’t mean he didn’t have hope Jason would become that little kid who loved Batman with all his gold heart.

Still when Dick was paralyzed and most likely bleeding out wasn’t the time to put Jason’s heart to the test. “Ja…son,” Dick croaked, he was getting a little feeling back in his face. It wouldn’t return fast enough to stop the slashed wound across his gut.

Jason’s red helmet gleamed in the dim street lamp; he crouched over Dick, too close with a gun hanging loosely between his gloved fingers. Yeah, Dick really didn’t want to test Jason’s affection for them at this point. “Man, you’re not looking too golden right now, are you Goldie? If only Two Face had caught a whiff of you, or hell, that demented clown – we’d really get to see if Bruce killed him for you.”

This was a bad turn of conversation. He felt blood bubbling down his lip and Jason’s red helmet stared back, blank, monotonous. What was his actual expression underneath, gleeful, thoughtful? It sounded like that through his filters.

“You’re really pathetic,” Jason mused. His cold helmet tilted, light reflected off to glare right in Dick’s eyeball. Thank hell he still had most of his lenses. Jason shrugged, “You know. In general but now especially,” Jason snickered. Great, Dick was now Jason’s unwilling, captive audience. He’d actually known Jason was a talker.

They’d had to be with Bruce being silence incarnated. Dick should’ve done something about that – should’ve made certain Jason has someone to talk to, shouldn’t have let his and Bruce’s pissing contest drive Jason into a dark abyss of solitude. He’d known Jason wouldn’t call the number Dick had given him – and Dick had been alright with that.

And now, Jason had found ways to make them listen. It usually started with threats of bodily harm, or a grand scheme that tipped their hand. At least already being injured severely was new in Jason’s tactics.

But this wasn’t the time to think about that. “Press…the transmitter,” Dick croaked out. He coughed, clearing the tightness of his throat and the blood spitting up his lungs.

Jason snorted, “Yeah, fucking right. This is the best thing that’s happened since I got those stitches your old man put up in my neck out, remember that? Oh right, you wouldn’t – weren’t you getting blown up at the time, talk about irony, right?” Dick half expected Jason to cross his legs and sit down for a pre-school chat.

“I’ll die if you…” Dick coughed, head drooping dangerously. He would choke if he coughed again this position. This was not how he planned tonight would go. Dick was completely in Jason’s limited mercy and Dick didn’t like that. Not one bit; on the other hand, it would be a short lived emotion at this rate.

Jason sighed, “…Fucking pathetic,” and shifted Dick’s head upward. He sucked in a dry breath, glaring up as Jason shook his head, “Never could figure why he loves you so fucking much. At least when I died it was heroically, in a big ass explosion and you,” Jason snickered. “You’ll go choking in your own bloodied spit in a pissed in alley. How’s that for legendary?”

Yep, this is all Dick needed to hear right now.

“Heroic?” Dick croaked, wincing as feeling came back to his throat. He glared at the blank helmet, “You went after the Joker alone. That’s not heroic, that’s idiotic,” Dick gritted out.

Jason snarled, fist hauling what was left of Dick’s uniform and jutted his knuckles into his throat.  “Irritating the guy who’s got your life in his hands it fucking idiotic,” Jason grounded out.

But Dick knew Jason’s MO. He craved attention; and if Dick angered him enough, Jason would ensure his survival just to destroy him later. Dick also knew that Jason still considered himself a hero, he wouldn’t let anyone he didn’t think deserve it die. Dick just had to prove to him that Dick did more good alive than he ever would dead.

Two tactics to try out and first all he had to do was making Jason feel, which he had. Anger was the easier to illicit in Jason, well in most of them really – except Timmy that was. “You’re not going to let me die,” Dick insisted to Jason’s snort. “Who would protect Bludhaven, or those innocent people caught in the flames Fire Fly trapped in the warehouse?” he pointed out. His suit was still singed, “Or who’d stop Ivy from her latest plants VS humans attack?”

“Me,” Jason insisted.

Dick was bleeding out here, running out of time. He couldn’t even bandage the stomach wound properly, Ivy’s poison had kicked in only a few rooftops from his motorcycle. Hopefully Batman had noticed he hadn’t arrived yet and sent someone to find him. “Right,” Dick grunted, “And what were you doing just now? Talking to your dealers, killing someone?” ‘Like a criminal’ went unspoken.

“You don’t know shit about me, Dick Head,” Jason hissed. Hit it on the nose, didn’t he?

Dick huffed, shaking out his head while his shoulders began to uncoil. Adrenaline was a real helper in saving his life but it’d also bleed him out faster. He didn’t have time for this.

“I know you can’t save this city by being part of the problem,” Dick gritted out. “And I know you’d rather preach your sob story then save my life. Rather bemoan anything bad that happened to you instead of fixing something fixable.”

Jason’s helmet being blank as it was, Dick still felt the heat of rage glaring from behind it. The fist in his uniform tight and unyielding, twisted slightly to cut off just enough air for it to be uncomfortable for his already grated throat.  Dick shot Jason a smug look for Jason proving his point. “I’ll kill you,” Jason mentioned, low and with a shrug – a bit too nonchalant than Dick anticipated.

“Spoken like a true criminal,” Dick shot back, “And we both know you’re better than that.”

“Really, do we? Could have fucking fooled me with your monologue just now,” Jason retorted. His gun was out, waving in his hand – a subconscious scare tactic. Dick wondered where Jason had picked it up – from Gotham’s criminals or wherever he disappeared to for those few years after he’d been revived.

Dick sucked in a heavy breath. He couldn’t keep this up for much longer. He was going to bleed out. Jason grunted, picking at Dick’s belt for his supplies. Dick was really glad to be proven right here, “3 o’clock,” Dick murmured.

Jason nodded, locating Dick’s instant bandage and ripped off the one Dick had bled through. Dick cursed and Jason snorted, tacking the bandage on hard to keep Dick’s guts inside. Dick huffed, “There’s a difference, Jason…” he panted.

“Shut up Dick,” Jason grumbled, “I just saved your life the least you could do is stop talking.” Dick huffed because his life wasn’t saved just yet.

Dick nearly choked on his laughter, head tilted back to suck air in his screaming chest and the agony blasting through his gut. “There’s a difference,” Dick gulped and continued, “Between our actions, our words and who we are. At least with you there is. The trick is getting all three to speak the same language.”

“Seriously Dick,” Jason bestowed him a dry, deadpanned stare that Dick experienced through the black lenses of Jason’s helmet. “You’re not fucking smart enough to try and teach me something so save yourself the trouble.” Yeah, Jason was probably right about that – about how it wouldn’t work, not right now, not altogether.

Dick smiled and dried blood cracked over his cheeks. “Knew you cared about me,” Dick needled rather blearily, he was losing the little light in the corner of his vision and his stomach was a jagged blast of pain, swallowing out all other sensations to amplify itself.

Jason sighed, faintly enough that Dick might not have heard it otherwise. “Did me bemoaning my sob story give it away?” he grumbled. Dick knew Jason was in there. The little kid he should’ve given the time of day to, the one Dick heard so much about – who was eager to please and easier to impress.

The kid who managed to make Bruce laugh out loud, as Batman, in Crime Alley on the anniversary of his parent’s murder. Dick couldn’t have done that – it even sounded impossible, but so was Jason.

That Jason was still in there. He was just twisted, a bit harsher, angrier, more demented but still that kid – and if Dick reached him that’d…wow, that’d be everything for the clan.

He caught the flash of his belt transmitter, signifying that it’d been pressed and Jason shifted backwards, intent on escape. “Wait,” Dick croaked, trying to blink the fog out of his mind. “I want to…” he heaved in air, “I want to be your brother, to try – this time.”

Jason huffed like Dick had said something sad and funny at the same time. Dick guessed it was, “It’s a bit late for that. I don’t need you to show me the ropes anymore,” he chewed out.

“You never needed me for that,” Dick smiled until it faltered, “Needed a brother. I’m sorry,” he murmured, trying to find the remains of that little kid in an emotionless helmet. But right then, it felt somber and downcast like the person behind had bled through.

Jason tilted his head, “Weird. I almost believe you,” he mumbled aloud.

Dick was quite literally on his death bed and Jason still didn’t believe him. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so freaking sad. This wasn’t just Jason’s fault, this was Bruce’s and Dick’s, as in the people who should have been there for him, should have showed that bruised child what it meant to be loved.

It might by the death gripping wound but Dick felt tears bite his vision, “I really am sorry,” he mouthed. He caught Jason’s wrist, holding on while Jason sagged back into a crouch. If Jason had been Timmy and Tim had been isolated, cast aside when it’d been exceedingly obvious that Tim required more than what he received, Dick would have…he would’ve been there and protected his brother; would’ve done something. But did he only learn to do that because Jason had died?

It left a bitterer taste in Dick’s mouth, bile and blood nothing compared to the wrongness in that truth.

“Your cavalry should be here in a about half a minute Dickie,” Jason said, barely heard through the fog that had descended. Dick didn’t want to release Jason, he wanted to fix this – fix what had gone wrong but Jason was proof that not everything could be fixed.

At least, there’d be no going back – only forward.

He’d finally rest when in route to the Cave, first he had to prove to Jason his intentions. “After,” Dick choked and shook his head, “We should go out, together – and be brotherly, together,” he repeated. The dried blood on his cheeks cracked with the words.

Jason was just a red blob at this point, swaying perception distorting him back and forth. Jason snickered, “Man. I’m fucking glad I didn’t get hit with whatever you did,” Jason shook his head. Dick tried to talk, to retort but another sound, familiar shouted his name and Jason disappeared, faster than an illusion with reality on his heels.

Batman crouched before him, large hand sliding over Dick’s wound to hold it steady despite the sucked in breath. “Can you hear me?” Batman questioned, and Dick nodded, neck taut in an attempt to hold back a cry of pain. “What were you injected with?” he interrogated. Bruce needed to know before he hopped Dick up on sedatives.

“Don’t know,” Dick rasped. His fingers finally shifted, only to create short jittering movements. Well that was one fault of regaining movement in appendages, “Ivy,” he clarified.

Batman ducked, pulling Dick to his chest in a swift movement that left Dick hissing, Bruce’s rigid Kevlar impossible to clutch onto. That wasn’t his favorite bit of a rescue.

“You’ll be alright,” Bruce promised. Dick instantly relaxed, the fight leaving his limbs as Bruce deposited him inside the Bat Mobile – if Batman said that, Dick really would be alright. He blinked drearily, fingers making motions over the newly bloodied bandage over his midsection and squelched in the blood dripping around him.  

Dick wondered if Jason would’ve believed that promise. Dick didn’t think so. That’d have to be fixed. He blacked out as Bruce revved the engine.

**Author's Note:**

> i know it's almost like i have a plot direction.  
> Either Cass or Tim will be next, or Stephanie - there's just so many children to choose from.


End file.
